


Christmas Return

by soapficgal



Category: Port Charles
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 05:57:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5731906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soapficgal/pseuds/soapficgal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Christmas Chris and Eve story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Return

The winter winds outside whipped up around the cabin reminding Chris Ramsey all over again about why he’d hated the holiday season. Sure, it was a time for giving and rejoicing, but for him it was always a time of year when he’d found himself miserable and reflecting on the ways he wasted the year that was soon to be put behind him. Even now as he looked to his black and white Christmas tree, he couldn’t help but find himself lost in a sea of regret.  
  
“Another year gone by,” Chris raised his martini glass to the tree in front of him ready to drown himself in his sorrows when his cell phone buzzed on the table top reminding him that while he’d taken the day off at the hospital, he’d been one of those unfortunate souls who’d been alone for Christmas and been put on call just in case things got a bit hectic at the hospital. Cursing under his breath Chris found himself wishing that he could have taken Jack up on his offer to go to the Bahamas right about now. At least in the warm tropical weather he’d be out of this snow and cold sipping on some fruity tropical drink enjoying more than the sounds of the storm outside.  
  
“Duty calls,” he reached for his cell phone ready to see what the hospital needed. He rehashed the steps he would have to take in plowing his way through the snow to get over to the hospital for another night of unrelenting work until another day passed. Soon another year would come and go and he’d still be in the same moment of sheer randomness waiting for the other shoe to drop. Still keeping busy at the hospital was much better than the alternative, he decided as he looked for the familiar number on the phone. Only this time he didn’t find it. Instead the number was blocked on his caller id.  
  
“That’s different,” he thought to himself picking up the phone and answering with a simple hello. Silence followed as Chris waited for another moment before speaking up again, “Is anyone there?”  
  
Again he was met by silence. For a moment he could swear he’d heard a breathy whisper on the other end of the line, but again as he tried to seek out the source of the caller on the other end of the line, nothing followed.  
  
“Forget it then,” he mouthed hanging up the phone and realizing that it must have been a prank caller. Shaking his head he pondered the thought of just how bored someone would have to be to find themselves making prank phone calls on Christmas Eve. Perhaps someone was in a far worse state than he was at this time of year, he reasoned as he moved in to play with the fire tapering off across the room.  
  
Sure, he could have stayed at his apartment, he rationalized thinking about his run to this cabin in the middle of nowhere, but what was the point? The hospital was still a bit of a drive away, but he could still make it if need be. Now he had all he needed with his tree, his fire and a pitcher of martinis in front of him. Life couldn’t get any more thrilling then that, right? He let out an ironic laugh realizing that after his phone call he wouldn’t be able to savor the martinis he’d whipped up simply because there could be something at the hospital bringing him back to work again. He poked at the fire once again before standing up and returning to the martini he’d been contemplating earlier.  
  
“I guess I’m out tonight,” he sighed ready to dismiss the glass in front of him, “but you don’t have to be Lambert. You can drink up all you want.”  
  
A poignant smile carried over his lips as he adjusted the martini glass he’d set up for her. While he’d known it was foolish, there was still a part of him that took the time to always make his departed friend a drink even though he was certain she’d never share another martini night with him. Despite the fact that they’d never be able to share in the laughter or the sarcastic yet witty exchanges that followed their martini session, he always made sure to keep a place for her. It was tradition and you couldn’t break tradition. There had to be some rule about that. Of course Chris hadn’t been one to follow the rules, but in this particular situation, he wasn’t one to even think twice about keeping this ritual in tact. Martinis would always be for him and Lambert and nothing would change that. Not even her death.  
  
Sadness crept in over him as he thought about the way she’d gone off of that bridge all those years ago. It had been his worst nightmare confirmed when his best friend had lost control of her car sending her to her untimely demise. While Chris had always regretted not being there the moment she’d been brought into the hospital for her final seconds, he always found himself wishing that there was some way he could have changed things--that somehow he could have turned the story around for her. Even now as he thought about all the things that followed her ending, it didn’t seem fair. She had so much in front of her--so many things that she should have been able to do, but she hadn’t been able to.  
  
“If only you hadn’t have opted to play fair in winning her heart,” Chris sighed reaching to the top drawer on the desk not far from where he stood. Inside was a small, velvet case containing the ring that he’d purchased for her when he’d asked her to marry him. Sure, he could have taken it back, but he’d refused wanting nothing more than for Eve to change her mind and see that he could give her the kind of life that she wanted. He had wanted to prove his worth to her and show her that he wasn’t just a self-centered narcissistic bastard with his own greedy agenda, but rather he was a self-centered narcissistic bastard with his own greedy agenda who was head over heels in love with her. He would have given up his fortune, his authority and anything else he had just to share a life with her. If she would have asked him to, he would have given her his last breath if it meant keeping her in this world a bit longer.  
  
“Why couldn’t I just manipulate the situation in my favor? If you would have married me Lambert, then you’d still be here. You wouldn’t have been preparing to leave with Ian and we’d be…” he stopped himself knowing only too well that he’d wanted to do the right thing with Eve. He’d wanted to prove to her that he could be more than what the world thought of him. He hadn’t wanted to bully her into a marriage that would leave her hating him and longing for a life with Ian, yet as he thought of the alternative, he’d almost found himself believing that would have truly been the key to keeping her around even if in the end they wouldn’t have been together.  
  
“You’d be surprised at how things have changed,” Chris mouthed to the martini glass in front of him. “Ian’s not at all the man that we thought he was. Turns out that Dr. Good Guy was hiding out here in Port Charles on his way to another town. From what I’ve heard he’s run some kind of underground gambling operation for a while and found his way to move onto another unsuspecting woman ready to believe in romance with him, yet he’s been good at covering his tracks. I should have known that he wasn’t all he’d pretended to be, but hey we all bought into his save the world mentality.”  
  
“Not all of us,” a voice corrected causing Chris to turn around and discover he’d had a new arrival in his cabin. His dark eyes widened as the woman before him was wearing a large, oversized jacket with a furry lined hood in front of him. She had a scarf in front of her face, but there was mistaking her voice.  
  
Chris blinked a couple of times before taking a tentative step forward, “Eve, is that you?”  
  
“Who else would be here with you in the middle of a blizzard ready for one of your killer martinis?” she questioned pushing the scarf away from her features long enough to reveal the same dark eyes he’d found himself dreaming about for years now.  
  
“I’ve lost my mind,” Chris blurted out wondering if perhaps he was succumbing to a bad case of cabin fever after all. He turned his attention to the martinis watching her extract the glass from the tray that it had been set upon before taking a long sip.  
  
“Oh these are better than I remembered,” she sighed smiling up at him as it was clear Chris was still in a state of confusion. “Ramsey, you might want to pick up your jaw before you trip over it.”  
  
“I don’t understand. How could you be? I mean I saw that you were…I know that you are…” Chris struggled to find the right question to ask as he stood before a vision of his long dead best friend. “What I mean is…how did you get in here?”  
  
“You left your back door unlocked, which probably isn’t the smartest of ideas,” she shook her head at him and frowned. “You never know what kind of people could get in here on a night like this. You’d be a sitting duck so to speak for trouble.”  
  
“I just…” he stammered once more. “How did you know I would be…?”  
  
“I went over to the hospital,” she explained setting her martini glass down and unzipping her coat. She shook the snow off of it before sliding out of it and setting it on the floor near the fireplace. “They said I could find you here.”  
  
“But how could…” he blinked again wondering if she would disappear on him.  
  
“It’s a long and complicated story that isn’t about to get any easier to digest,” Eve motioned to the full martini glass that sat behind him, “You might want to take a sip of that one.”  
  
Chris nodded reaching for the glass and drowning it down completely in one gulp before reaching for the pitcher to refill it again. His brown eyes were filled with confusion and curiosity as Eve took a seat before him.  
  
“As you can see I’m still very much alive,” she explained in a light and natural tone as if this was something he should have known for years. Silently he moved in beside her hanging on her every word. “You see you were right about Ian. The guy was a total creep, but fortunately I never crossed paths with him in the first place.”  
  
“I don’t understand,” Chris watched her take a small sip of her martini and smile approvingly.  
  
“Yours were always the best Ramsey,” she boasted feeding into his ego and causing him to smile.  
  
“Of course they were,” he grinned proudly before thinking about the situation at hand, “but really, what are you doing here? How could you be alive when..?”  
  
“Remember when Kevin and I broke up?” she questioned seeing the obvious confusion behind his eyes.  
  
“Yeah, you ran off to be with Ian,” he shuddered at the memory. “You realized he was the great love of your life and you rushed to be with him.  
  
“No, I didn’t,” she corrected taking another sip of her martini. “That’s not the time I’m talking about. I’m referring to when I lead you to believe that Kevin and I split up, but we were just putting on a performance for DV. Does that ring a bell?”  
  
Immediately a frown creased over Chris’s lips and a darkness carried over his features alerting her to the fact that he hadn’t at all forgotten how she’d deceived him. It was during that time that they’d bonded again and gotten closer when he’d offered her a place to life. It was in that moment in time when they’d returned to living together again. He’d tried to be her hero when Kevin had ‘broken her heart’ and in turn he’d only discovered that he’d been lied to from the start.  
  
“I’m sorry about all of that Chris,” Eve touched his leg gently feeling him stiffen beneath his touch. “I never, ever meant to hurt you during that time, but Kevin and I were out of options.”  
  
“So much so that you thought you would play up the lie to the full extent on your old buddy Chris?” he frowned knowing that he shouldn’t be angry with her especially now that she was obviously alive and with him again. He’d wished for that for so long, but there was something about her bringing up the past that left him unsettled. It was an old wound that was created long before Ian had entered Port Charles.  
  
“That was a mistake,” she apologized, “one that I’ve thought about a lot especially lately.”  
  
“I just don’t understand how you could be here now…” he trailed off searching for some answers to her arrival.  
  
“DV did a lot of horrible things and shortly after you discovered that I lied to you the FBI came to me. They started telling me about some of the things that DV had done. He was bitter and angry with me for leaving him in the first place,” she drew in a nervous breath thinking about the past she’d left behind her. “He was trying to seek revenge on me and that started with his arrival in Port Charles. He’d even gone so far as to send someone after my sister. He had someone hurt Shelly and when the FBI offered me an opportunity to get back at him, I took it. They promised me that everything would go off smoothly and that once they had him again that justice would finally be served. All I had to do was testify against him when the trial came up…”  
  
“But it never did,” Chris realized thinking about the fallen David Bordiso.  
  
“No, it didn’t,” Eve explained fidgeting with her fingers in her hands, “but no one thought it fit to tell me that. All they would say is that there were still collecting evidence and I had to stay away from Port Charles. I waited for an opportunity to return, but it never came.”  
  
“How is that possible though? I saw you here. I knew that…” Chris struggled to come to terms with what she was saying.  
  
“They had a woman who looked very similar to me on the case. She was sent into Port Charles in my place to take care of getting what they needed to incriminate DV, but what they didn’t tell me is that DV was shot and killed before that could happen. Rightfully they should have let me know that they no longer had a case against him, but instead they set their sights on trapping Ian Thornhart,” she shuddered at the memory of what had kept her from Port Charles. “The agent they sent in to deal with the situation had gotten close to Ian, so rather than letting me have my life again, they kept me locked away from the rest of the world so that she could take him down once and for all.”  
  
“A lot of good that did,” he rolled his eyes at the memory of Ian and ‘Eve’s’ great love for one another. “She married him and had his child.”  
  
“So I’ve been told,” Eve nodded back at him, “which is kind of unsettling considering that anyone who knew me should have realized that Ian wasn’t at all my type.”  
  
“You weren’t exactly yourself at the time this all happened Eve. You’d changed a lot,” he pointed out thinking back to how they’d gone from best friends to practically strangers.  
  
“I realize that Chris and I blame that in part on what happened when we were living together,” she cleared her throat, her eyes masked with apprehension. “I know that I should have tried to find a way to make things right after that night, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have much time before the FBI stepped in and…”  
  
“And what?” he stood up throwing his hands in the air. “Now you expect me to just believe that everything I thought to be true about you was a lie? That you didn’t really rip my heart out to be with some man who didn’t deserve you? Who didn’t love you like you should have been loved?”  
  
“Are you talking about Ian or Kevin?” she asked in a tentative whisper.  
  
“Both maybe,” he ran his fingers through his dark hair. “Do you have any idea what I went through in trying to make you see how I felt for you? To try to show you that even if I wasn’t a great guy, that my heart was still yours? I mean when I think about how many nights I wanted to kick myself for thinking that you cared…”  
  
“I did care,” she stood up to meet him half way in the room. Uneasily she reached out to touch his arm gently, “I still do care which is why I’m here.”  
  
“It took you long enough to find your way back,” Chris grumbled pushing away from her before shaking his head. “So tell me what happens now? Are we supposed to hunt down Kevin and tell him that you were just away all this time because of the FBI?”  
  
“Kevin knew I was gone,” Eve explained surprising him with her words. He turned around to face her with a scowl.  
  
“Of course he did because the good doctor knew everything about your life. He was always a priority for you,” he rolled his eyes before turning to pour himself another martini. “He was always what you wanted anyways.”  
  
“No Chris, it wasn’t like that,” she reached out to place her hand over his before stopping him from filling his glass again. “Kevin only knew I was leaving because he was there when the FBI pulled me in to go. He was against it, but I thought it was the only way to spare him--to save everyone that I loved.”  
  
“I’m glad to see where I ranked in all of that,” he muttered refusing to turn around and look at her.  
  
“Chris, I didn’t have a choice,” she paused taking in a nervous breath, “and besides when I left I told him about us. About what happened when I was living with you again.”  
  
“What?” he questioned looking to her once again.  
  
“I told him about that night when we were having martinis and you went on and on about how Kevin didn’t deserve me. You remember that night, don’t you? We started laughing and joking with one another and then one thing lead to another,” she couldn’t help but smile at the memory, “kind of like it always did when we got drunk together.”  
  
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but that night ended quite differently than it did all the other times we got drunk together,” he felt a warmth carry over him at the thought of the one time that they’d tossed their inhibitions aside and fell into one another’s arms.  
  
“Yeah, it did,” she smiled up at him as her eyes lit up at the memory. “It was undoubtedly the greatest night of my life.”  
  
“Yet you ran away to be with Kevin after it was clear you lied to me,” he balked back coldly knowing only too well he’d been down the road of being shut out by her time and time again when someone else better came along.  
  
“No Chris. I told Kevin about what happened. I didn’t want to lie to him or you any longer,” she curled her fingers around his arm, “but with the case against DV I had no choice. I had to leave town and they wouldn’t let me come back--not until they were ready to take down Ian.”  
  
“Ian left a long time ago,” he explained with a frown. “He took off shortly after he bilked Lucy out of all of her money.”  
  
“So I’ve been told, but no one felt the need to pass this information onto me. I only recently found out that everything played out as it had. I had no idea of what was truly going on back here in Port Charles,” she pleaded with him to believe her. “All I really knew was that when I was able to, I needed to get home again so that I could find you. I needed to see you again so that…”  
  
“What? So you could tell me all of this and have me help you pull your life together again? So you could lean on your good, old buddy Chris long enough to find your way back to Kevin?” he inquired painfully.  
  
“No, so I could find you and tell you about our son Chris,” she blurted out without hesitation.  
  
“Son?” he repeated.  
  
She nodded once again before reaching for his hand and taking it in hers, “Yeah, that night we shared a bit more than just a good time and martinis. I found out I was pregnant shortly after I left town, but they wouldn’t let me come back. They wouldn’t let me seek you out no matter how much I wanted to. You have no idea how much I wanted to after I found out I was pregnant especially after I learned I was having your child.”  
  
“Are you saying that…?” he found himself at a loss again as she touched the side of his face gently.  
  
“You’re a father Chris and for so many years I wanted to tell you that, but now that I’m here, well I hope that you don’t hate me for staying away. If I could have, I would have been here soon, but the situation wouldn’t allow it,” she fell to silence again before meeting his eyes. “Now that I’ve found you I know that you must have mixed emotions about me, but our son needs you. He’s needed you his whole life and I came here tonight to find you so that you could finally see him. I wanted you two to know each other and spend this time together on Christmas.”  
  
“We have a son,” Chris pondered the thought aloud. “You and I…”  
  
“Have an amazing little boy and if you’ll let me, I want to take you to meet him. He’s back in town with Victor and Mary. They offered to watch him while I came searching for you. They know all about everything and…” she started to explain to him.  
  
“My son’s in Port Charles?” he cut her off abruptly.  
  
“Yeah, and he can’t wait to meet you. That is if you’re willing,” she confessed searching his eyes once again hoping to read his reaction.  
  
“Of course I want to meet him and Eve,” he finally leaned in closer to her, “before we get into all of this and where we’ll go from here, there’s just one thing I need to say.”  
  
“What’s that?” she questioned feeling him curl his hand around her neck to draw her in closer to him. Without a moment’s hesitation, his lips collected hers in a long anticipated moment of sweet surrender. Her fingers eased across his shoulders, up into his hair as their kiss intensified reminding the both of them of what they’d once shared briefly with one another. Finally the two parted breathlessly each seeking out the feelings that still remained behind the other’s eyes.  
  
“I missed you,” Chris confessed pressing his forehead to hers as a sigh spilled over his lips. “Don’t even think about leaving me like that again.”  
  
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she swore as Chris held her in his arms savoring the moment of her return in all of it’s wonderful glory now that it was clear that one of his Christmas wishes had been granted. 


End file.
